Bronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hare

Bronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hare

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Children and animals are common subjects in Hellenistic art and this scene of a boy holding or killing a hare likely derives from specific prototypes known now only from literary sources. This small statuette is finely executed in bronze with evidence of its original gilding on the neck, face, and hair of the boy.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hareBronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hareBronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hareBronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hareBronze statuette of a kneeling boy holding a hare

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.